ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For a generation, Don Mattingly embodied the Yankees ideal. He was the team’s best player, its captain and a revered figure for the way he carried himself.

When he retired after the 1995 season, the Yankees acquired first baseman Tino Martinez from the Seattle Mariners as his replacement. Martinez would prove to be a shrewd acquisition, a valuable contributor on four World Series champions who was a worthy enough successor to Mattingly that he was honored last summer with a plaque in Monument Park.

But Martinez’s transition to New York was not so smooth. He started his first season with three hits in his first 34 at-bats and did not hit a home run until his 18th game.

Nearly 20 years later, the Yankees find themselves in a similar situation.

Derek Jeter, another idolized captain, has retired, and his replacement, Didi Gregorius, was searching for his footing as the new Yankees shortstop.

Gregorius has struggled to hit, but that might have been expected for a player who has been penciled in at the bottom of the batting order. He is batting .152 and sat out the Yankees’ 9-0 victory over the Rays on Saturday.

What has been disconcerting is how unsteady he has been in the field and on the basepaths. Gregorius has committed just one error, but there have been three other plays that a superior defensive talent like Gregorius might be expected to make. He has also been thrown out twice on the bases after making careless or questionable decisions: rounding a base after a hit and trying to steal third when the Yankees trailed by five runs on opening day.

The mistakes, by and large, might be classified as anti-Jeter plays.

Fans at Yankee Stadium seemed to notice last Sunday when, after Gregorius was unable to glove a wide throw by second baseman Stephen Drew, they began chanting “De-rek Jet-er!”

Afterward, Gregorius said all he could do was laugh about the chants.

Jeter, who lives in Tampa, Fla., reached out to Gregorius before the start of the season, via text and phone calls, letting him know what to expect in New York.

“He told me to just be yourself, play the game,” said Gregorius, who has not spoken with Jeter since the season began.

Questions about Jeter have naturally followed Gregorius since he was acquired from Arizona in a three-way trade that cost the Yankees pitcher Shane Greene, who has yet to allow a run in two starts for the Detroit Tigers.

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Tino Martinez had growing pains when he replaced the retired Don Mattingly at first base in 1996.CreditOtto Greule/Getty Images

The Yankees had coveted Gregorius’s range and athleticism since last season. Jeter had the lowest range metric in baseball at his position. After acquiring Chase Headley, a former Gold Glove third baseman, last season, the Yankees may not have close to the offensive clout they once had with Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the left side of the infield, but they had hoped to significantly improve their defense.

“I’m not trying to follow in his footsteps,” Gregorius said Wednesday in Baltimore, referring to Jeter. “I’m not looking for any pressure like that. I’m only human, and people make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. What more can I say?”

Although Gregorius insisted he was not pressing, others noticed that he was not playing the game as freely or as easily as he did in spring training, when his athleticism was apparent in the field and his bat seemed to be rounding into shape for the beginning of the season.

“It’s all environment,” the hitting coach Jeff Pentland said, noting that Gregorius is not the first young player to struggle in a new environment, particularly in New York. “He’s chasing bad pitches, which is what sticks out more than anything else.”

The third-base coach Joe Espada, who also coaches the Yankee infielders, sees a similarly impatient player. Espada said he would like Gregorius to slow the game down and play it more patiently without losing his aggressiveness.

Manager Joe Girardi noted that Gregorius was just 25 and had not been a starter on opening day until this season.

“There is an adjustment period for anyone who comes to New York,” Girardi said. “It is not the easiest position to handle, either. He is, in a sense, the captain of an infield, and he has a lot of responsibilities. It’s only been a week, too. That’s why I don’t make too much of it.”

Gregorius arrived at Tropicana Field in the early afternoon Friday, taking extra ground balls along with his fellow infielder Gregorio Petit, as well as extra batting practice. When their work was done, they played cards in the clubhouse.

Espada said the opening day blunder, when Gregorius was thrown out trying to steal third with two runners aboard to end the eighth inning, all but sealing a 6-1 loss to Toronto, was a mistake that sticks in the minds of many.

If it had happened on a midweek night in May in Milwaukee, it could easily be forgotten.

“If it wasn’t opening day, and if he hadn’t been wearing a New York Yankees uniform, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal,” Espada said. “It’s a young player learning, and I’ve seen players that age, their first or second year in the big leagues, and nobody says anything about it.”

Of course, one of the best ways to bury it in memory banks is to hit, field and run the bases the way the Yankees had hoped, and for the team itself to win.

Martinez’s case is a good reminder of that.

A year after replacing Mattingly, Martinez had a career season for the Yankees: a .296 batting average, 44 home runs and 141 runs batted in, finishing second in the most valuable player voting for the American League. And although his 1996 season began so dreadfully, it did not end that way. Martinez produced numbers almost identical to his final season in Seattle, and the Yankees won the World Series.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section SP, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Nearly 20 Years Later, Another Yankees Replacement Struggles. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe